A review by slc333
Booked for Murder by R.J. Blain
3.0
Both enjoyable and somewhat frustrating.
It was amusing and while there is no info dump (which is a good thing) it sometimes seemed a bit disjointed or confusing in places - like i was expected to know things or figure things out about the world building, magical system and Janette's history with the Hamptons without being given any information to do so. And while it is marketed as the 1st book in the vigilante magical librarian series it reads more like the first part of an ongoing serial than the first book of an ongoing series as it is more a string of admittedly entertaining interactions between Janette & B , their families and Janette’s librarian friends as they go about forming an investigative cell to solve a series of murders possibly linked to political conspiracies. But there is no resolution of the story arc completed to make it a stand alone book. Its like the author started writing the story, hit a certain word limit and published what she had irrespective of where the story was at. I imagine the next book will be the next part of the story but I find serialised books frustrating. Series are fine - even continued larger story arcs thru a series work but individual books need their own story arc too. And that needs to be tied up. I am interested to see where the story goes but not sure about the serial journey required to get there.
It was amusing and while there is no info dump (which is a good thing) it sometimes seemed a bit disjointed or confusing in places - like i was expected to know things or figure things out about the world building, magical system and Janette's history with the Hamptons without being given any information to do so. And while it is marketed as the 1st book in the vigilante magical librarian series it reads more like the first part of an ongoing serial than the first book of an ongoing series as it is more a string of admittedly entertaining interactions between Janette & B , their families and Janette’s librarian friends as they go about forming an investigative cell to solve a series of murders possibly linked to political conspiracies. But there is no resolution of the story arc completed to make it a stand alone book. Its like the author started writing the story, hit a certain word limit and published what she had irrespective of where the story was at. I imagine the next book will be the next part of the story but I find serialised books frustrating. Series are fine - even continued larger story arcs thru a series work but individual books need their own story arc too. And that needs to be tied up. I am interested to see where the story goes but not sure about the serial journey required to get there.